BR Blue The North In Focus

AUTHOR: Stephen Owens

PUBLISHER: Amberley Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-39810-714-4

PRICE: £15.99

WEBSITE: www.amberley-books.com

AMBERLEY PUBLISHING has gained a good reputation for producing quality photo books at reasonable prices, and this book is an example of why these can be so enjoyable.

Being a northerner, I had a feeling I would enjoy this volume as I am familiar with many of the areas featured within its pages.

As the title suggests, this is a book packed full of BR blue locomotives, covering a period mainly from 1978 to 1982 – a time many modern traction enthusiasts class as the halcyon years of the railway. All the locomotive types that worked in Scotland and Northern England are featured, and the book captures the era well.

The image reproduction quality inside the book is excellent and the author has made a great choice of images to illustrate the 96 pages. My main criticism of this book, as with other similar books produced by Amberley, concerns the reproduction of the cover, which is printed too dark. This appears to be a constant problem and even though you should never judge a book by its cover, I do wonder how many potential purchasers are put off by the dark photo quality of the cover without seeing the excellent quality of the reproduction on the internal pages.

AMC